National success at the James Dyson Award: HfG students impress with their sign language wearable ​‘NURA’

With their inno­va­tive NURA project, HfG students Samuel Nagel and Paul Feiler took second place at national level in the pres­ti­gious James Dyson Award. The smart wrist­band trans­lates sign language and spoken language in real time and impres­si­vely demons­trates how user-centred design can break down social barriers.

The project origi­nated from discus­sions with a sign language inter­preter and offi­cials at the Ministry of Health. It became clear that inter­pre­ters are often fully booked for months in advance and are expen­sive. As a result, deaf people often have to do without essen­tial support at spon­ta­neous gathe­rings, weddings or social events. In response to this issue, Samuel Nagel and Paul Feiler deve­loped the vision for NURA, an inde­pen­dent, perma­nent support system that enables deaf people to enjoy greater auto­nomy in their ever­yday lives.

NURA is a wrist-worn device that trans­lates in both direc­tions. When the wearer signs, EMG sensors on the inside of the wrist­band detect the elec­trical signals from the forearm muscles. These signals are trans­lated into words in real time and output via a built-in speaker. When the other person responds, a micro­phone picks up the spoken language and converts it into text, which appears on an easy-to-read dot-matrix display on the wrist. In addi­tion, two inte­grated wide-angle cameras capture the facial expres­sions essen­tial for sign language. An intel­li­gent algo­rithm also learns the wearer’s indi­vi­dual signing style, making the trans­la­tion incre­asingly accu­rate. All of this works directly on the body, without a smart­phone and without the need for a third party.

During the design process, our students placed parti­cular emphasis on avoi­ding a stig­ma­ti­sing medical aid. NURA is desi­gned as an elegant acces­sory that people enjoy wearing. Follo­wing initial tests of the core tech­no­lo­gies, nume­rous sket­ches and form studies using sili­cone and 3D prin­ting, a func­tional proto­type was created. This curr­ently utilises motion and posi­tion sensors and is already capable of reco­g­nising and audibly output­ting six signs.

In addi­tion to its success at the James Dyson Award, the NURA project has already secured first place at the Rimowa Design Prize, where the team was mentored by Tim Richter, Head of Indus­trial Design at Siemens Healthineers.

We congra­tu­late Samuel Nagel and Paul Feiler on this outstan­ding achie­ve­ment. NURA is an excel­lent example of how, at the HfG Schwä­bisch Gmünd, inno­va­tion, tech­nical feasi­bi­lity and a high stan­dard of design come toge­ther to create solu­tions that offer genuine social value.